Personal – Time Tracking *Update*

29 Jan, 2011

Alright,

So a while back I said I was going to try my hand at time tracking. Now initially I started off all fine and dandy and then I realized the system wasn’t for me. When I’m writing stream of conscious-ness keyboards are great but when I want to track things I find that digital media is just not my forte.

That would have meant tracking 22/31 days. Didn’t quite make that goal as I trashed the notepad sheet and turfed the habit but that’s ok as I picked up a couple things along the way that have served me well this month:

Every morning while I’m eating breakfast I sit down with a pad of paper and a pen and write down the things I’d like to accomplish for the day (along with time estimates of how long each task will take). This helps me step back and realize I can’t do a bazillion things in one day and also makes me more conscious of how long I’m spending on each task. Once I complete each task I cross it off (OH SO SATISFYING) and write down how long it actually took. I’ve found that I over estimate how long most tasks will take me.

At night I make sure to check my calender for the next day so I don’t get lambasted by some arbitrary appointment I made months ago. Write anything down that I didn’t complete today so it’s out of my head and I won’t stress about forgetting about it while I sleep.

Finally I set my alarm knowing that I’ll be getting up on time for whatever I need to tackle the next day.

I like that this system is simple. I was very caught up in finding the right app, program, guru to use to start this whole shift and in the end I’m using full scalp and a bic pen….awesome. What I’d like to improve would be looking outside of that 24 hour block of time and making week/month to do’s.